Renee Rigdon is So Glad You Are Here

06/21/2024

This post brought to you by Renee, who has had to backspace nearly every comment they have almost posted on the Spicy Cat God's Great Internet this morning.

Something to think about today (and often): Are you interacting WITH the world, or interacting AT the world?

Are you responding to what is really happening in front of you or are you responding to your worldview within what is happening in front of you?

Are you reacting to the present or the past? Or are you predicting the future?

It can be hard to know the difference.

I love you.

06/21/2024

Something I wish that someone had told me, early in my grief, that maybe I wouldn't have been able to hear at the time:

You don't have to get over it. Or past it. Or through it. Certainly not on anyone's timeline (including your own).

I felt so much more pain from the pressure to feel better to make other folks feel better. The pressure to follow others' narrative any laughter or smiles I have are a sign of how well I'm doing, rather than just me getting through the world the best that I can.
The pressure to make sure no one was ever too worried or bummed out by my SAD WIDOW STUFF.

*Almost* all of this pressure was internal rather than external. But it would have helped to hear, externally,

"it's okay that this is going to change you forever. whomever you are on the other side of this, and during this, is an absolutely fine person to be in this world."

"It's okay that the way that you carry pain this isn't always graceful. It's okay if you don't feel it getting lighter, because it will at least get different, and sometimes even beautiful."

So I'm saying it now. So that anyone who needs it in the future can hear it. So that maybe our limited human understanding of time means that maybe past me is hearing it, and i just don't know because I don't know how time works.

It's okay. However you move within the tragedies and frustrations of your life, it's okay. You get to be okay. Right where you are. At least some of the time.

I love you.

06/04/2024

Lexpomo 3. Honestly, I'm not 100% sure I would consider this an acceptable entry, but it's what was in my heart to share today.

06/01/2024

Just me, doing my absolute best, writing poems about plants and making grandma canva graphics.

Image description: Poem on a background of a photograph of mulberries. Poem reads:

Mulberries don't need plucking.

home your hand
beneath the tender humid air of branches &

Beckon

the beseeching softness of fingers
—in call
the berry arrives
—in response

a summersweet yielding to the vessel of your palm.

05/25/2024

Fragrance weirdo update (quick recap, I decided to get super into fragrance in 2024 and have been trying to figure out what scents I'm really drawn to): Lately, there's at least a little note of really good lavender in every fragrance that I really love. Right now, it's Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's "Gossip, Slang, and Cuss-Words" which has notes:

- lavender
- mallow
- orris root
- angelica
- frosted vanilla bean
- osmanthus

Osmanthus adds kind of an apricot/peach vibe that makes me feel like I'm walking through an orchard.

What are you into these days?

I'll be at the shop from 12:30-5 today, come say hi and check out all our awesome deals.

05/23/2024

I've decided I'm going to have what I'm calling a "French Coastal" summer. The rules:

At least a little bit of my glorious genderqueer belly is always going to be a little visible.

I'm going to eat so many pastries.

If I can do any of this near a body of water, bonus points.

05/16/2024

We have spaces left in a few classes over the next five days.

Getting to Know Your Sewing Machine
Eraser Carving
Floral Embroidery
Needle Felted Mushrooms

https://lexcreativereuse.simpletix.com

While there, check out everything we have coming up for the rest of the month!

04/26/2024

Every once in awhile, I get overly proud of myself for how good I am doing at learning how to be loving towards myself. Then I'll start thinking, "I bet I'm too kind to myself."

Then I'll have a day where my uterus is being a jerkwad and I handled two really challenging widow tasks on what is probably the hardest day of grief week and then I wonder why I'm not being more productive and decide I'm just being lazy.

Notes to self:
•"normal" people also need rest on hard days, not just you
• lazy actually isn't a bad thing most of the time, that's just weird puritan capitalist nonsense
• pain sucks and pushing through it to accomplish objectively optional tasks is not aligned with the current mission structure of my life
• it's unlikely that I will ever be "too kind" to myself, and when I try to examine that, i'm not even really sure what that's supposed to mean

Notes to you:
• however you are doing today, you are likely doing a good enough job at it.
• actually maybe try doing a little less and see how that feels
• we aren't supposed to be reliable machines. We're supposed to be mammals cuddling in a forest by a stream as the sun dapples across our warm fur.

04/26/2024

I've been fighting to get access to his books for the past couple years, but Matt Rigdon's books are finally under my control.

Need a heartfelt, hilarious and chaotic weekend read? I'd love to recommend Domestic Villainy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AF89YLM

He was working on a sequel. It's not finished. It's sitting in his files waiting for me to be brave enough to read it.

If you read his book, I would love if you would review it. It's so good.

Ever forgo your lifelong dreams of world domination for marital bliss and the joys and struggles of parenthood? Doctor Destructo did. Now the cohorts and enemies of his past are back with a plan that even he may not be able to stop. With the help of his superheroine wife, government coworkers, an...

04/23/2024

It's been two and a half years. The thirtieth invocation of grief week. Something about my grief at the half mark is always so much more powerful than even the anniversaries. I think, in a way, it is not an anniversary of his passing that April brings, but an anniversary of my reality settling into my body. The first death rattles of my magical thinking that there was some way, any way, I could find my way to him.

I have been Orpheus and Rocket Man and I do think it's going to be a long, long time still, until I start to recognize my life as something other than just The Old Widow Rigdon. I'll always be that, but maybe one day, I'll start recognizing more glimmers of this person I'll be for the rest of my life, and all the wonderful things that are going to happen.

I haven't kicked the disbelief entirely. I'll pick up my phone to tell him this joke I just thought of. I'll suddenly, beset by a memory of that awful week, or of how just a moment ago we were laughing together, curled up, and now he's gone, and I will say out loud, "What the actual f*ck."

Because how the actual f*ck did that happen? How is he gone? How am I a Widow?

The truth is, I don't fully want to kick the disbelief. It's microseconds of time travel back to my old life. It's a visit. A pass. A privilege.

I hate that one day every one of you will make sense of the things I am writing, which I can only imagine sound unhinged now. I hate that there are many of you who can already make sense of it. I hate that I can.

But I love him. I love you. I have been realizing lately, actually really love me, too. Please don't say you are proud of me for any of it. It feels awful for people to be proud of me for experiencing tragedy. I get it. I know. You don't have to say it.

04/02/2024

How are you celebrating National Poetry Month?

03/27/2024

A little thing I’m trying to be mindful of:

If someone tells me that something is hurting them, is my reaction to tell that person that the same thing does not hurt me?

If a joke hurts someone else, is my first reaction to tell them that I don’t find the joke offensive?

If a person tells me they don’t like being misgendered, do I tell them I don’t mind what anyone calls me?

If a person expresses a fear, do I tell them I am not afraid of that thing? Or that there’s nothing to be afraid of?

Follow up Questions:

Do I genuinely believe that the conversation was meant to be a checklist of our individual tolerances to distress?

Or do I think maybe that person was seeking support, care, and understanding?

If the latter, how am I feeling about that approach where I kept the focus on my needs, opinions, and comfort level?

We can always do better by each other. This is one of the ways I try.